I know, my poor blog has been neglected lately. The past few weeks have been spent packing...packing a classroom...packing a house...packing Jared's house....I never want to pack again. Good thing is, is that I'm ALMOST finished. I move this weekend and I could not be more ready. Only 2 1/2 more days of school! We are just barely hanging in there. We've had field trips, field day and AR Carnival in the last few days. I am one tired teacher.

Today was the day that I sent EVERYTHING home with my kiddos. I finally got to pass back their AR ribbons. They have been waiting for these all year! Do you have Accelerated Reading at your school? In case you don't know what that is, its a program where kids can read books and take tests on them for points. I am mixed emotions about the program. ﻿That's a completely different story.

This is the first year I've actually displayed students points in the classroom. Here is our AR board looked like.

I found the ribbons pre-cut at hobby lobby! They are for decorating homecoming mums but they worked perfect for this! Each time a student earned 5 points they earned an AR point circle. They would be so excited to see what the next circle color would be! If you'd like a copy of my point circles click here. I just printed them onto color paper to save ink!

The tragedy from the tornadoes have devastated hundreds of people. The awful event has hit very close to home. My finance's family live in Oklahoma City. The first tornado that hit on Sunday that eventually went through Shawnee, OK touched down a block and half away from my future in-laws house. We were very fortunate for all of his family to be safe. Several friends...not so much. Here is a picture taken my brother-in-law. He went to help some friends today. This is all of the belongings that they have left.

Many of the teachers from Teachers Notebook have donated some great products for this huge relief effort bundle! There are over $2000.00 worth of products that have been donated. You can have this entire bundle simply by donating $20, $25, $50, or $100. No matter what amount you choose to donate, you will get access to the entire bundle. It is a wonderful opportunity to help out those recently devastated in the Oklahoma tragedy and to also to stock up on some great resources.

I know....I know....I've been MIA the last several days. I have been SO busy, I honestly haven't even had time to sit down at the computer to check my e-mail. I'm down to 6 1/2 days of school, 8 days until I have to be out of my house, 9 days until I move and 32 days until the wedding. AAAHH. I have packed and packed and packed and still have a long way to go.

I have been working on packing up my classroom and its a very slow process. I've only been teaching for 3 years and I've already accumulated SO MUCH stuff! I started packing up our math tubs today and I wanted to share them with you. These are a time saver all year long. Each student has their own math tub marked with their number. Here is what they look like.

Inside each box, each student has their own individual set of base ten blocks, money, 2 color counters, linking cubes, color tiles and a Judy clock. I often add more or sometimes take some out. I have the amount of each manipulative written on each bag. If something is missing or a student doesn't have enough, they know what they need to get from our shared supplies. I actually had my students label the bags. Saved me a lot of time.

When we're doing a lesson that involves a manipulative I just call out a number and they go get THEIR box. They are in charge of keeping up with their items. There is no "waiting forever" to count out manipulatives or no staying late after school to prep. We set them up the first week of school and during the last few weeks I have the students check their boxes and restock for next year! I love them!

As you know, I'm getting married and have lots of new changes headed my way. A few weeks ago, after the big TPT sale, I posted how I was having a hard time with not knowing what the future holds as far as finding a new job. Well today my prayers we're answered! I have a job for next year!!!! It all happened very suddenly. I applied for the job 2 Friday's ago. They called me on Tuesday last week (a week ago today). I interviewed YESTERDAY. (I was so glad they we're willing to work with my schedule considering I was interviewing for a job 4 hours away from where I currently am.) They called me today and offered me the job! AND...it's 2nd GRADE!!!!! I get to keep using all of my fabulous materials. Now I have to refill my cart!!! I am so EXCITED!!! Thank you everyone for your prayers. All of the words of encouragement I received means so much. Now I get to start planning for next year like everyone else! YAY!!!!

Now since I know ya'll are so good a sending some prayers where they are needed. I'm going to ask to send some prayers to the state of Oklahoma. Especially Moore, and OKC. My finance's family live in OKC and the entire situation has been very hard on everyone in our family. When the FIRST tornado touched down on Sunday, it hit about a block and half away from my future in-laws house. We know lots of people who live in Moore and surrounding areas that have been affected by this awful event. I ask that you pray for all of the families involved and bless the poor sweeties who did not make it. I cannot imagine being in that situation. It just breaks my heart. I felt blessed to hug my sweeties just a little tighter today.

This week is off to a CR-A-ZY start so I'm keeping this short and sweet tonight. We've started our TPRI benchmark testing and this makes things a little chaotic. Most of the day was spent testing kids one on one while trying to keep all of the others occupied. By 2:30 I had to call it quits and give my sweeties some fun attention. I'm thinking...what am I going to do to keep them entertained for the next 30 minutes. I look over and see my basket of puffer balls.

My first year of teaching I bought these puffer balls from the dollar spot at Target! These have been a huge favorite for the past 3 years. I had a whole basket full and I'm down to these 4. I really need to get some more. You can find them on Amazon here.

I do this activity a lot as filler. We mainly play using our spelling words to play "sparkle." I had them get into a circle. I passed out two puffer balls and said GO! They have to pass the balls like hot potato until I say stop. Once I say stop, the two people holding the puffer balls have to answer a question. Today I did a math review. I called out random math facts, even and odd problems, problems featuring place value, greater than/less than, money and really anything I could think of off the top of my head. If they answer the question right then they get to stay in the game. If they get it wrong then they are out. We keep playing until we have winner then we start all over.

(I couldn't get a very good action shot!)

We also play using sight words. I'll hold up a card and whoever catches the ball has to read the sight word to stay in the game. The kids love to play and its a great filler when you have a few minutes to spare.

Only 2 1/2 more Fridays!!! WOOHOO!! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share five things from my week!

My week started off with taking Bridal pictures! Now I can't share anything with ya'll just yet but here I am sitting down waiting for the photographer to show up. He was a little late.

We've been working super hard on area and perimeter over the last few weeks. Here's a few activities we did this week.

Find the perimeter. I taped larger shapes all over the floor. Yes, I used Halloween duct tape. It's all I had! The kids loved it though. We used yard sticks to find the perimeter of our over sized shapes!

Here we are practicing area using letters of the alphabet. I had each student make the first letter of their first name. Then we played scoot using our math journals.

Exploring area with cheez-its! I definitely scored points with this one!

For the next few weeks we are basically reviewing all the concepts we've learned over the year. We've been using my Spring Into Literacy Centers a lot to help us out. The girl on the right was so EXCITED! She was playing memory with synonyms and she finally got a match!

We finished up our mother's day crafts today.

We made "picture frames". I used a binder clip as the base. I had seen this idea on pinterest and knew I wanted to try it out. They weren't as cute as I wanted them to be. I brought feathers and cute jewels to decorate them. Then one of my kids spilt his water bottle over my sack and all of the feathers got ruined. (He felt terrible, it was an accident). So, we just added glitter. The concept worked though.

We made these cute crafts from Amy Lemons and Mel D. We are running SO low on construction paper. We had to use drawing paper but they still turned out cute.

Last but not least, it was Teacher Appreciation Week! I think my favorite thing about it was that our PTO fed us lunch or breakfast every day!

This was our gift from PTO. This tree has all of my sweeties thumb prints. It means a lot because I won't be returning next year since I'll be moving.

One of my sweeties gave me this bracelet! I just LOVE it!

There you have it! I'm off to pack (UGH...I really hate moving!) Have a good weekend everyone!

There is so much excitement going on around the blogging world right now. The big Teacher Appreciation Sale is about to come to a close on TPT. The past few days, I have been really excited about this. I get home today (after, a very long and rough day) and I log into TPT to look over everything in my cart and am about to check out when it hits me.....

If you have been a follower of my blog, you know that I am getting married! 44 more days! With this marriage comes a lot of new adventures that I have been more than excited to take. With this marriage comes a move and finding a new job. Today, it hit me that I have no idea what I'll be doing next year. At work everyone is already preparing for next year....in the blog world, everyone is preparing for next year. What am I doing? Well, I may no longer be a 2nd grade teacher.

As I sat there, looking at my cart, I then deleted everything in it. I thought to myself...what if I can't use this next year. Everything I had planned on purchasing was for 2nd grade. I LOVE 2nd grade. I thought to myself...what if I buy all of this and I can't use this? OR what if I buy all of this and I can't even find a job next year. It hit my like a ton of bricks. I've applied for several jobs (I'm open to anything. Bring on a new grade level if that's His plan!) but haven't heard anything yet. I know that its still early but I am a WORRIER ya'll. I'm terrible. So here is what I'm asking. I'm asking for prayer and encouragement. I'm so excited about what the future holds. A new last name, a husband, a new home, a new town. But with all of that new, a lot of uncertainty comes too. I know that I just need to keep trusting in HIM and that he will put me in the right place.

Click here to head on over to Blog Hoppin to see what other fabulous bloggers have purchased during the sale!

Ever since I joined the blogging world last October (TPT Seller in September) I have felt truly blessed. Each an everyone of you that read this, know that I APPRECIATE you. Bless you. You're support means more than you'll ever know.

Happy Teacher Appreciation week everyone! I'm sure you've heard by now about the big SALE starting tomorrow on TPT! If not then let me fill you in!

Everything in my store will be 20% off starting tomorrow! Don't forget to use the promo code TAD13 and earn an addition 8% off!!! Below are a few items of mine that you can snatch up during the big sale!

I'll be the first to admit that when I get that "You've received feedback on an item" notification on my phone I get a little nervous. You never know what its going to say and I cross my fingers and hope its good! Most of the time you get comments like "great" or "thanks". While I enjoy those, I love getting FABULOUS feedback that makes you feel proud of your work.

Below are a few of my favorite feedbacks that I've received. All you have to do is read on, see if I selected your feedback as one of my most
fabulous, and let me know if I did and you get your choice of an item from my
shop for leaving me such amazing feedback! I really do love hearing how my
products are making a difference for your students, so thank you, thank you, thank
you!

All of us bloggers have come together to share our top tips for making the last month of school run smoothly. Visit each of our blogs to learn something new and catch a freebie or two!

Happy Hopping

In my units I like to use an activity called "find someone who...". Here's how it works. Each kids gets an answer sheet. They then walk around the room, find a partner and say "can you solve letter h?" If they answer the problem correctly, then that student writes their name in that box and move onto a new partner. If they get the problem wrong they must move onto the next person. Once all of the boxes have been signed, have them sit back down and review the answers.

They really love this game. I always reward them with a sticker or some small treat if they can "play the game without getting to noisy." It works really well. What I love the most is that they are learning from each other. If one student is struggling, they rarely ask me for help. They'll ask their partner and of course they enjoy helping. Its fantastic!

I've noticed the past few weeks that my kiddos are needing a serious review on telling time. I created this little review to get them up out of their seats, moving around while their still engaged in the lesson. Click here to get "Find Someone Who Can Tell Time". There are two sheets with clocks to the hour and half hour, and two sheets with clocks in 5 minute increments.

You can use this idea with just about any concept; math facts, sight words, vocabulary. Its a favorite in my classroom and always seems to hold their attention for more than 5 minutes! It is also a part of my EOY Campout: A 2nd Grade Math Review.